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ADDK 


AT  THE  PTJNBBAl,  OF  THE 


REV.    DR.    1^0  TT 


SCHENECTADY,  FEBRUARY  2,  1866; 


PRESBYTERIA:^^   OHXJROII 


BV  THE  rAiTOB, 


REV.  J.  TRUMBULL  BACKUS,   D.D. 


PRINTED  FOR  THE  USE  OF  THE  FAMILY. 


I 


ADDRESS         \ 


AT  THE  PXINEBAL  OF  THE 


EEV.    DK.    N'OTT, 


SCHEJ^ECTADY,  FEBRUARY  2,  1866, 


IN  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH, 


BY  THE  PA8T0B, 


REV.  J.  TRUMBULL  BACKUS,  D.  D. 


PRINTED  FOR  THE  USE  OF  THE  FAMILY. 


NEW  YORK : 

PKESS     OF     WYNKOOP     &     HALLENBECK, 

113  Fulton  Stbebt. 

1866. 


6^ 


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in  2007  witii  funding  from 

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littp://www.arcliive.org/details/addressatfuneralOObackiala 


/  LIBPARY 

7  LMVEKSn  Y  OF  CAIJFOILNIA 

\,j  .  SAiNTA  SAIIBARA 

?5 


ADDRESS. 


This  occasion  makes  its  own  impressions.  The 
silent  power  of  these  preparations  for  tlie  grave,  witli 
their  sad  and  tender  associations  for  ns  all,  is  more 
eloquent  than  could  be  the  most  fervid  human  utter- 
ances.    It  is  the  voice  of  God  to  His  mortal  creatures. 

We  look  upon  this  coffin,  and  think  of  him  whom 
we  have  known  and  revered  for  these  long  years,  so 
great,  so  potent  as  he  was.  But  he  is  not  there,  the 
tabernacle  is  bereft  of  its  glory.  That  which  gave 
such  power  to  his  eye,  such  expressiveness  to  his  face, 
such  grandeur  and  command  to  that  form,  tJie  spirit,  is 
no  more  here.     It  has  returned  to  God. 

And  we,  with  hearts  full  of  the  high  interest  and 
value  of  his  life,  gathered  about  that  in  its  grave 
dress  which  was  he,  where  for  so  long  he  has 
been  wont  to  stand  between  the  living  and  the  dead 
and  proclaim  salvation,  on  the  spot  whence  so  often  he 
distributed  and  enforced  the  sacramental  emblems,*  let 
us  all  receive  from  that  awful  repose  one  more  impres- 

<*  Dr.  Nott  had  been  accustomed  for  many  years  to  take  part  with  the  pastor 
in  the  administration  of  the  Lord's  Supper. 


sion  upon  Ms  favorite  theme  of  death  and  eternal  life. 
As  lie  was  laboring  down  to  the  river  now  passed,  he 
said  (not  consciously),  "  I  will  preach."  And  doth  he 
not  preach  to  us  beyond  all  the  matchless  oratory  of 
his  best  days  ?  He,  who  could  so  impressively  express 
himself  upon  the  grave  and  retribution,  that  he  might 
commend  to  mortal  men  Him  who  through  death  de- 
stroyed the  power  of  death  and  delivered  them,  now 
himself  of  the  dead,  and  on  his  way  to  the  sepulchre, 
preaches  his  last,  his  farewell  sermon  to  his  pupils,  to 
his  co-laborers  in  pulpit  and  college,  to  his  fellow- 
Christians  and  fellow-sinners.  We  may  no  more  hear 
his  voice,  nor  look  upon  his  venerable  presence ;  but 
his  unwonted  silence  and  stillness,  the  strange  indiifer- 
ence  to  us,  his  sorrowing  friends,  have  8iich  a  heart- 
breaking power,  such  a  divine  solemnity  of  appeal ! 
Holy  Spirit,  preach  Thou  to  every  one  here  through 
these  memories  of  him  who  is  to  preach  no  more; 
make  the  living  lay  to  heart  this  day's  lesson  of  Divine 
Providence. 

To  others  it  shall  be  left,  and  on  more  fitting  occa- 
sion, to  remind  this  community  of  what  he  was  to  them 
from  of  old  ;  how  he  labored  for  their  melioration  and 
welfare  in  all  respects ;  how  every  concern  of  moment 
to  this  locality  enlisted  his  generous,  far-seeing  zeal, 
(from  the  very  shade  trees  which  relieve  and  adorn 
our  streets,  all  through  the  gradations  of  municipal 


and  social  life,  up  to  the  establishment  of  the  school, 
and  the  endowment  of  the  college)  ;  how  thus,  for  a 
period  of  sixty  years,  he  has  been  of  material  and  pe- 
cuniary advantage  beyond  any  other  instrumentality 
to  our  city. 

Let  it  be  told  by  others  what  his  relation  has  been 
to  the  important  educational  record  of  this,  his  adopted 
State  ;  what  essential  influence  he  exerted  toward  the 
inception  of  our  common  school  system ;  how  unselfish 
and  noble  he  was  in  regard  to  the  interests  of  the 
sister  colleges  of  the  Commonwealth,  and  how  worthily 
he  fulfilled  the  trusts  reposed  in  him  for  them. 

Let  it  be  for  others  to  portray  his  public  spirit,  his 
sympathy  with  all  philanthropic  enterprises,  his  sin- 
gular readiness  always  to  do  and  to  endure  for  what- 
ever proposed  relief  of  the  poor,  the  oppressed,  or  the 
afllicted, — for  any  real  melioration  of  man. 

All  this,  and  such  as  this,  has  to  be  told,  and  will  be 
again  and  again  repeated  in  just  eulogy.  Confident 
are  we  that,  when  his  life  and  influence  are  recorded  by 
well-informed,  competent,  and  congenial  spiiits,  (impar- 
tially, Christianly  recorded),  it  will  be  so  rich  in  inci- 
dent, so  extraordinary  in  its  facts,  so  demonstrative 
of  greatness  and  goodness  in  its  subject,  that  the  world 
will  more  than  ever  take  knowledge  of  him,  and  honor 
his  memory. 

But  our  hearts  and  memories  do  not  need  that,  here 


and  now.  To  the  relation  between  Ms  life  and  religion, 
therefore,  we  will  at  present  restrict  ourselves ;  and  in 
trying  to  tell  how  he  began,  how  he  was  disciplined, 
and  how  he  finished,  we  will  determine  what  his  real 
life  was,  and  what  should  be  our  estimate  of  it. 

Looking  back  nearly  a  century,  we  see  a  little  boy 
of  not  yet  four  years,  leaning  on  his  mother's  knee, 
gazing  with  his  bright  eyes  into  her  fond  face,  while 
she  instnicts  him.  The  lesson  is,  "  Fear  God,  and  keep 
His  commandments."  Already  the  child  has  com- 
mitted most  of  the  English  version  of  the  Psalms,  and 
very  many  besides  of  the  grand  old  renderings  of  them 
by  Sternhold  and  Hopkins.  What  must  have  been  the 
religious  influence  of  a  mother,  unusually  wrapt  up  in 
her  precocious  son,  as  she  seems  to  have  been,  and  so 
devoted  to  his  religious  welfare,  as  this  fact  implies  ? 
The  mother  *  was  a  gifted  woman,  as  well  as  fervently 
pious.  She  was  also,  for  the  times,  unusually  well  edu- 
cated and  accomplished ;  and  she  put  in  requisition  all 
her  resources  to  obviate  the  disabilities  of  poverty  for 
the  mental  and  religious  culture  of  the  son.  She  heard 
him  read  the  Bible  entirely  through,  ere  he  was  four 
years  old.  From  her  he  derived  his  first  and  finest 
impressions  in  that  art  of  elocution  for  which  he  be- 
came so  distinguished  (as  he  often  said) ;  herself  his 
only  model  and  critic  in  that  which  some  supposed  to 

*  Mrs.  Stephen  Nott  was  a  daughter  of  Col.  Samuel  Selden,  of  Lyun,  Conn. 


be  tlie  artificial  result  of  a  very  different  schooling, 
but  with  which  she  had  imbued  him  till  it  became  a 
second  nature.     He  said  of  her:   "The  light  of  my 
young  life  went  out  when  my  mother  died ; "  and,  to 
appreciate  this  fully,  we  must  have  in  mind  how  more 
than  ordinaiy  was  the  relation  of  that  mother  and  son ; 
that  she  was  to  him  companion,  as  well  as  counselor, 
playmate,  as  well  as  teacher  and  mother.     He  never 
had  any  child's  society.     The  reverses  of  the  family 
compelled  him  to  work  regularly  on  the  little  farm 
before  he  was  nine  years  old,  and,  though  his  thirst  for 
knowledge  was  insatiate,  precluded  his  studying  by 
day.      So  at  night  after  toil,  his  mother  sympathiz- 
ing   and   aiding,  the   boy  was  learning    and  labor- 
ing at  that  early   age.     That  faithful,  loving  mother 
died  when  he   was  fifteen,  but  not  before  her   work 
for  his  soul  had  been   well   done.      He    could   not 
remember  when  he  began  to  fear  and  love  God,  be- 
cause (we  presume)  at  a  very  early  period  his  heart 
was  turned  to  the  way  of  salvation.     But  the  effect 
upon  him  of  her  loss,  terrible  as  was  the  affliction, 
seems  to  have  been  to  seal  upon  his  heart  the  lessons 
of  her  pious  care,  and  induce  him  publicly  that  year  to 
profess  religion,  and  ultimately  to  devote  himself  to  the 
holy   ministry. 

Dr.   Nott   was   ever  and   eminently  reverent  and 
awe-struck  in  the   contemplation   of  death.     It  did 


not  seem  to  be  an  ordinary  fear   of  dying.     It  was 
rather  a  fearful  impression  of  cleatli's  remorseless  in- 
difference to  human  plans  and  hopes ;  a  dread,  as  of  an 
enemy  whose  dire  power  to  bereave  he   had  sorely 
tried.     His  mother's  decease  was  the  great  trial  of  his 
child-life,  and  at  an  age  when  perhaps  it  is  most  hard 
to  bear.     It  doubtless  left  a  deep  scar  upon  Ms  heart. 
Do  we  not  perceive  the  effect  all  through  his  after  life  ? 
There  was  another  such  impression,  when  at  thirty 
years  of  age  he,  the  gifted  and  widely  honored  pastor  of 
an  Albany  charge,  at  a  time  when  to  be  so  placed  and 
honored  was  to  be  the  religious  monitor  of  the  chief 
men  in  our  State  and  nation,  the  friend  and  associate 
of  persons  whose  fame  has  since  been  world-wide.     In 
that  experience  of  care  and  responsibility  and  severe 
pressure  upon  the  brain  and  the  heart,  (such  as  led 
himself  to  say  that  he  could  hardly  have  lived  through 
it  long,)  he  relied  exceedingly  upon  his  gifted  and 
devoted  wife.*     He  had  never  thought  (he  said)  that 
she  would  die.     Yet  remorseless  death  came  again,  and 
blotted  out  the  brightness  of  his  home,  and  bowed  him 
how  deeply !     The  tradition  of  this  bereavement  and 
its  mournful  effects  lingered  in  that  city  through  an- 
other generation.     Is  it  only  an  imaginary  conviction, 
that  this  new  and  severe  lesson  accounts,  in  no  small 

*  She  was  a  daughter  of  Rev.  Joel  Benedict,  of  Plainfield,  Conn.,  with  whom 
Dr.  Nott  completed  his  preparation  for  college,  and  afterward  studied  theology, 
while  acting  as  the  Principal  of  Plainfield  Academy. 


9 

degree,  for  that  peculiar  tone  which  characterized  his 
after  religious  life,  and  preaching  the  prominence  of 
such  thouo^hts  and  themes  ? 

Then  there  was  a  third  stage  in  this  singular 
experience  and  its  eifects.  It  occurred  much  later 
in  life.  Never  can  it  be  forgotten  by  those  who 
w^ere  immediately  cognizant  of  it.  An  entire  com- 
munity was  thrown  into  the  deepest  sympathy  of 
grief  by  the  death  of  his  only  daughter.*  She 
had  made  his  home  so  bright,  so  like  it  of  old,  when 
her  mother  was  its  gladness.  No  doubt  he  had  com- 
forted himself  with  the  confidence  that  it  would  be  for 
him  ever  so  to  his  end.  No  one  could  mistake  the 
potency  in  that  ever-to-be-remembered  loving  influ- 
ence. But  it  was  not  to  continue.  Asrain  came 
remorseless  death,  and  threw  his  pall  over  the  bright- 
ness of  that  home.  The  blow  was  severe  beyond 
description,  but  he  met  it  like  a  Christian.f    The  sub- 

*  She  was  the  wife  of  Rev.  Alonzo  Potter,  D.D.  andLL.D..  then  Vice-Presi- 
dent of  Union  College,  afterward  the  distinguished  prelate  of  the  Episcopal 
diocese  of  Pennsylvania. 

t  Extract  from  a  letter  written  by  Dr.  Nott  under  the  influence  of  that 
grief : 

*  *  *  "Nothing  could  have  been  more  sudden  and  unexpected  than 
the  death  of  my  daughter,  and  nothing  to  me  or  mine  more  distressful .  Few 
people  live  who  are  bound  together  with  more  tender  ties  than  those  which 
bound  her  to  us — especially  to  me.  I  had  hoped  to  lean  on  her  as  I  descended 
toward  the  grave,  and  to  hear  her  voice  and  feel  the  support  of  her  hand  on 
my  bed  of  death.  But  I  have  been  called  to  build  her  tomb,  and  she  not 
mine.  Her  departure  has  left  a  mighty  void  in  my  heart,  and  there  remains  a 
sense  of  desolateness  which  must  be  abiding.  It  is  a  wreck  that  cannot  be 
repaired.     No  other  stroke  could  so  have  crushed  my  hopes  and  joys.     Bat  I 


10 

limity  of  tliat  grief  cannot  be  described.  Witbout 
sternness,  witbout  bitterness  or  murmnring,  witbout 
distrust  of  God;  but  sucb  an  appalling  power  it 
implied  of  deatb,  sucb  a  renewal  was  it  of  bis  earlier 
experiences. 

Tbis,  and  sucb  as  tbis,  was  bis  discipline  fi'oni  God ; 
as  it  seems  to  me,  made  means  of  grace,  more  tban 
any  otbers  of  bis  varied  trials  to  prepare  bim  to 
die  tbe  deatb  of  tbe  rigbteous ;  and  probably  giving 
its  peculiar  tone  to  bis  religious  experience,  and  to  bis 
public  discourses.  At  any  rate,  wbatever  tbe  cause,  a 
prominent  cbaracteristic  in  bis  preacbing,  and  of  bis 
religious  life,  was  tbis  sense  of  tbe  fearfulness  of  deatb. 
His  sermons  abounded  in  it ;  and  tbougbtful  minds 
were  sure  to  witness  its  manifestations  in  tbe  freedom 
of  social  intercourse.  Remarkably  cbeerful  and  felici- 
tous as  be  was  in  society,  alive  always  to  tbe  interest^ 

feel,  and  from  the  first  have  felt,  that  the  arm  of  God  inflicted  it.  I  do  not  wish, 
I  have  not  wished,  the  decision  altered.  I  have  a  strong  conviction  on  my  mind 
that  Maria  was  prepared  to  die.  She  had  been  ripening  for  heaven,  and  I  trust 
was  ripe  for  it.  If  so,  our  loss  is  her  gain  ;  and  if  we  tnily  loved  her,  therefore, 
in  place  of  sorrowing,  we  should  rejoice.  It  is  difficult  to  carry  the  truths  of 
the  gospel  out  in  practice.  The  want  of  faith  embarrassed  even  Christ's 
disciples. 

'*  If  they  had  little  faith,  what  may  be  said  of  us  ?  It  is  hard  to  learn  that 
this  is  not  our  rest,  and  hence  loss,  follows  loss  till  the  weary,  bereaved  pilgrim 
finds  that  no  prop  is  left  on  earth  to  lean  upon.  There  is  nothing  left  so  dear 
to  me  as  the  child  which  God  has  taken.  But  it  is  God  who  has  taken  her.  If 
she  were  borne  away  into  exile,  there  would  be  a  sore  pang  at  the  recollection 
of  departure.  But  she  has  gone  home  to  her  Father's  house,  and  there  I  hope 
presently  to  meet  her.  My  remaining  journey  will  indeed  be  less  cheerful 
than  it  would  could  I  have  continued  to  enjoy  the  solace  of  her  company. 
Still  the  end  will  not  be  less  joyful  because  she  has  gone  before  me."    o   o  o  o 


11 

of  passing  event's,  active  and  earnest  in  regard  to  duties 
and  efforts  for  the  immediate  present,  nothing  seemed 
more  natural  and  necessary  than  to  recur  to  those  other 
thoughts  and  feelings. 

The  grand  aim  of  Dr.  Nott's  life  wotild  seem  to  have 
been  the  melioration  of  men  according  to  the  spirit  of 
the  gospel.  This  simple  idea  of  a  renewed,  a  Christian 
heart,  with  its  Puritan  associations,  (may  we  not  say  its 
Puritan  essentials?)  of  education,  freedom,  and  frater- 
nity, affords  the  clue  for  a  fair  unfolding  of  this  remark- 
able life.  We  make  no  claim  for  him  of  sinless  disin- 
terestedness, or  of  perfect  freedom  from  the  infirmities 
of  our  humanity.  No  one  could  pray  as  he  did,  apart 
from  a  painful  sense  of  his  own  imperfections  and  sins. 
No  one  arrogated  less  for  himself  in  such  respects  than 
he.  Yet  this  grand  aim  of  a  truly  Christian  mind  was  his, 
by  the  grace  of  God.  He  had  originally  experienced 
it  through  his  mother's  pious  care.  It  had  been  inten- 
sified through  those  disciplinary  familiarities  with 
death  to  which  we  have  alluded.  And  it  was  evident  to 
his  latest  life.  Therefore  he  so  dreaded  out-living  his 
power  to  be  at  work.  Therefore  he  so  felt  the  obliga- 
tion to  do  with  his  might  while  the  day  lasted. 
And  so  it  was,  that  the  blow  which  laid  him  aside 
from  active  life  a  few  years  since  found  him,  though 
really  an  infirm  old  man,  harder  than  ever  at  work, 
resolutely,   almost   perversely   bent  upon   doing   his 


12 

utmost  so  long  as  lie  could.  All  his  invention,  his 
pressure  of  secular  care,  his  marked  sagacity  in  deal- 
ing with  men,  and  such  other  things,  which  we  asso- 
ciate with  him,  had  been  forced  upon  him  hy  the 
cii'mtmstances  besetting  the  working  out  of  his  grand 
aim. 

Just  threescore  and  ten  years  ago  he  came  first  to 
this  State.     He  came  in  a  missionary  spirit,  fired  with 
the  noble  aim  referred  to.     In  his  Puritan  associations 
the  school  and  the  church  kept  company.     Knowledge 
and  religion  were  properly  twin  sisters,  real  science 
and  real  revelation  never  at  variance.    And  throughout 
his  long  and  admired  career  he  has  diligently  pursued 
this  aim  in  this  spirit.     He  has  endeavored  to  instill  it 
into  all  others.  He  has  striven  to  impress  it,  with  its  love 
of  truth  as  truth,  its  regard  for  duty  as  duty,  its  candor, 
catholicity,   and   all  magnanimity,   upon   the   young. 
Did  time  permit,  it  would  be  pleasing  to  dilate  upon 
these  aspects  of  the  character  and  life,  which  his  friends 
so  love  to  dwell  upon.     Were  I  to  choose  a  single 
expression  of  all  these  social  characteristics  of  our  Hon- 
ored Dead,  it  would  be  that  he  was  remarkably  supe- 
rior to  all  the  littlenesses  of  human  selfishness.   He  was 
truly  a  magnanimous  man,  because  his  natm'al  noble- 
ness  of    spirit   was    informed    and   aggrandized    by 
fear  of    God;   and  it  was  this    character,  which   so 
adapted  and  signally  empowered  him  as  the  educator 


13 

and  governor  of  youth.  It  is  well  said  that  "  he  gov- 
erned the  college  by  his  prayers."  But  it  was  the 
praying  of  this  sort  of  man ;  of  one  who  sympathized 
with  the  young  men ;  of  one  who  forgot  not  his  own 
need  of  grace  when  he  dealt  with  the  erring, — forgot 
not  the  sweetness  and  power  of  home,  when  he  prayed 
for,  or  watched  over  his  pupils,  forgot  not  his  own 
bitter  experiences,  when  poor  or  discouraged  students 
were  to  be  aided  and  cheered  on  their  way.  When 
others  would  counsel  harshness  of  discipline,  when  rash 
youth  had  been  overborne  by  temptation,  he  never 
ignored  his  Divine  Master's  tender  interest  for  the 
young,  never  failed  to  remember  that  the  Lord,  and 
the  servant,  had  a  mission  of  love,  to  "seek  and 
to  save  the  lost."  And  master  of  all  the  powers  of  col- 
lege strategy  though  he  was  so  beyond  compare, 
detecting,  preventing,  and  rectifying  evil  and  mischief 
with  an  almost  superhuman  faculty,  he  was  furthest 
possible  fi'om  the  spirit  of  a  mere  and  harsh  inquisitor 
or  tyrant.  He  aimed  to  be  a  father  and  Mend  of  every 
young  man,  good  or  bad,  and  his  pupils,  consciously  or 
not,  felt  it,  and  loved  him.  So  his  magnanimity,  even 
more  than  his  skill  and  power,  governed  them.  And 
therefore  it  was  so  :  "  Dr.  Nott  governed  Union  Col- 
lege by  his  prayers." 

There  was  one  characteristic  of  this  beloved  man,  of 
essential  affinity  with  his  grand  aim,  a  vital  part  of  it, — 


14 

whicli  I  hazard  nothing  in  styling  the  crowning 
'  glory  of  his  character  and  life.  He  was  pre-eminently 
and  unreservedly  a  Peacemaker.  Wonderfully  here  he 
made  one  feel,  always,  that  he  was  an  exceeding  good 
and  great  man.  The  chief  element  in  this  excellence 
was  his  own  forgiving  spirit.  For  a  third  of  a  century 
one,  who  has  been  perhaps  as  free  to  intrude  upon  him 
as  any  other,  and  as  fully  possessed  of  his  temptations 
to  bitterness,  censoriousness,  and  uncharitableness, 
with  whom  he  conferred  so  unreservedly,  and  expressed 
himself  so  unguardedly,  that  a  glimpse  of  the  wrong 
spirit  would  have  been  had,  if  indulged, — and  that 
witness  here  testifies,  if  ever  there  was  in  mere  man 
the  nobleness  of  a  thoroughly  and  invariably  forgiving 
spirit,  it  characterized  our  departed  Friend  and  Father. 
He  talked  freely  of  matters,  in  regard  to  which  it  was 
notorious  that  his  sense  of  justice  and  honor  had  been 
cruelly  outraged.  But  never  did  unchristian  harshness 
of  expression  escape  him.  With  such  a  spirit,  what  a 
power  he  had  as  a  peacemaker  !  He,  who  always  so 
truly  prayed,  "  Forgive  us  as  we  forgive  those  who  have 
sinned  against  us,"  could,  and  habitually  did,  throw 
himself,  often  with  most  benign  effect,  between  oppos- 
ing partisans  in  Church  and  in  State.  To  many  a  furious 
:and  ruinous  discord  he  has  effectually  said,  "  Peace,  be 
still."  In  how  many  a  social,  and  even  in  the  more  un- 
manageable domestic  feud,  has  he  gracefully  and  ten- 


16 

derly  interposed,  bringing  order  and  rest  out  of  confu- 
sion and  wrath.  Most  of  that  record  is,  of  course,  only  on 
high.  But  enough  of  him  is  well  known,  and  reverently 
felt,  as  to  the  loveliness  and  power  of  this  spirit,  to 
assure  us  that  all  the  glory  and  the  good  is  his  of  that 
saying  of  our  Lord  :  "  Blessed  are  the  peacemakers,  for 
they  shall  be  called  the  children  of  God." 

The  immediate  expectation  of  death  is  usually  a 
severe  test  of  man ;  and  Dr.  Nott  has  been  conscious  of 
that  condition  for  years.  Since  1860  he  has  felt  that  he 
was  within  a  momentary  summons  to  go  hence.  During 
much  of  this  protracted  period  of  awaiting  and  expect- 
mcr.  he  has  been  enouorh  himself  to  discriminate 
clearly,  and  cautiously  consider,  his  prospects.  Clouds 
and  apprehensions  would  sometimes  intervene ;  but 
always  there  was  reverent,  cordial  submission  to  the 
Divine  will,  and  for  the  most  part  a  sweet,  humble, 
child-like  fearlessness  of  trust  and  hope.  It  was  the 
manifestation  of  a  true,  soul-sustaining  Christianity ; 
and  a  demonstration  of  his  sincerity,  an  interpretation 
of  his  life  beyond  all  scope  for  cavil  or  doubt — a  price- 
less testimony  to  the  covenant  faithfulness  of  God. 
How  sad  it  was  to  witness  the  waning  of  that  noble 
spirit,  to  be  so  premonished  all  these  weary  months 
and  years  that  he  was  passing  away !  Yet  how  blessed 
the  assurance  accorded  to  us,  made  more  and  more  full 
at  every  new  stage  of  his  progress  homeward,  that  he 


16 

was  tnisting  unwaveringly  in  that  grace  of  God,  wliicli 
had  cared  for  him  from  infant  life.  He  was  ever  to 
the  end  a  little  child  before  God,  most  pleased  to  sit 
at  Jesus'  feet,  and  confiding  firmly,  gratefully,  in 
the  sovereignty  and  loving-kindness  of  his  gracious 
Lord.  In  his  dying  hours,  when  he  felt  that  the  end 
could  not  be  afar,  his  parting  counsel  and  legacy  to  his 
nearest  friend  was,  "  Fear  God,  and  keep  His  com- 
mandments ;"  the  counsel  and  legacy  of  his  mother  to 
himself,  which  had  begun  and  controlled  his  entire 
religious  life.  When  utterance  was  difficult,  the  spirit 
only  not  gone,  he  said  :  "  One  word,  one  word — Jesus 
Christ ! "  And  the  last,  the  very  last  exclamation  from 
his  lips  was :  "  My  covenant  God  ! "  Blessed,  beloved 
man  !  These  precious  remains  we  will  deposit  tenderly 
in  their  appointed  resting-place,  the  grave  made  honor- 
able and  sure,  because  under  watch  and  ward  of  Him 
who  is  "  the  Resurrection  and  the  Life."  Remorseless 
death  may  seem  to  have  dominion.  But  it  is  only  a 
seeming.  Thou,  sainted  Friend  and  Father,  thyself  art 
in  another  sphere  and  rest,  in  the  home  of  God,  in  "  the 
house  not  made  with  hands,  eternal  in  the  heavens."  We 
will  think  of  thee  hereafter  as  denizen  of  the  brighter, 
better  country,  knowing  even  as  also  thou  art  known, 
refined  of  all  dross,  purged  of  all  sin,  released  from 
all  care,  at  home  in  the  joy  of  thy  Lord.  "  There  the 
wicked  cease  from  troubling,  and  the  weary  are  at 
rest." 


^ 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

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